(Adnkronos) – While in Europe and around the world the debate on minimum age, identity verification, and the responsibility of digital platforms intensifies, Australia has become one of the main global laboratories for regulating online safety for children and adolescents. The protagonist of the recent legislative evolution that led to the blocking of access to digital platforms for minors under 16 is Julie Inman Grant, eSafety Commissioner of the Australian Government, who spoke today at the event “Growing with Artificial Intelligence. Conscious choices in a connected world” organized by Telefono Azzurro on the occasion of Safer Internet Day.
This measure – reads the press release – should be seen as the result of a complex and articulated process that directly involves companies, sets clear limits, and builds concrete proposals. “I believe that this approach represents an experience of great interest, which we will also have the opportunity to explore during the discussion scheduled for the afternoon with the other European countries involved, within a framework in which Europe assumes a central and strategic role on these issues” – states Ernesto Caffo, President of Telefono Azzurro.
In her speech, Inman Grant illustrated the approach adopted by Australia over the last ten years, based on three operational pillars: prevention through digital education, protection through reporting systems and removal of illegal content, and a systemic intervention that today finds full expression in a regulatory framework aligned with the European Digital Services Act.
“This third pillar was missing from our legislative system – she explained – and this is where proactive change comes into play: technology always moves faster than policies, and we cannot afford to fall behind as regulators. This is why we launched the future casting program in 2017 and the Safety by Design initiative in 2018, which shifts responsibility back to the platforms themselves: assessing risks and harms from the outset, integrating safety measures from the design phase, instead of intervening after the harm has already been done. It is important to note that, last week, eSafety published a transparency report indicating that eight of the world’s largest tech companies were not doing enough to prevent serious crimes against children, such as grooming, sexual abuse, and sexual extortion, on their platforms. This is not a matter of technical capability, but of corporate will.”
Grant also emphasized that delaying access to social media for under-16s has a protective nature and allows children and adolescents to develop digital resilience skills and exercise their critical thinking. With this measure, 10 large companies deactivated over 4.7 million accounts belonging to Australian users under 16 in the first month. “Now we enter the most complex phase: ensuring that companies do not allow systemic circumvention of the rules. Regulatory guidelines clarify that platforms are responsible for preventing circumvention via VPNs or identity falsification; they must provide easily identifiable reporting tools for unintercepted under-16 accounts; and they must demonstrate continuous improvement in the accuracy of adopted technologies and processes” – concluded Grant. Grant highlighted how age verification systems today represent a fundamental infrastructure for the digital world. These are infrastructures that require time and shared responsibility, so that they become globally scalable.
